


better to light the candle

by leiascully



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-22
Updated: 2007-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain keeps his crew together and life goes on, sailing through the black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	better to light the candle

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-_Serenity_  
> A/N: Thanks to [**luxemburger**](http://luxemburger.livejournal.com/) for the readover. Title is from a Chinese proverb: "better to light the candle than curse the darkness", which [this site](http://www.paperjewels.com/chinese_pinyin.html) tells me is "Yu qi zu Zuou hei an, bu ru ran qi la zhu", in Pinyin (or [here](http://chineseculture.about.com/library/symbol/blcc_bettertolightthecandlethancursethedarkness.htm) if you like to see it written out).  
> Disclaimer: _Firefly_ and all related characters belong to Joss Whedon. No infringement intended.

Zoe's grief is a wild thing, hiding in her. Mal sees it now and again. Just a flash in her eyes sometimes when he's looking at a time he ought not look, and never on a mission, but he's seen it. It ain't a thing he can soothe and he ain't ever been much for soothing anyhow so he just keeps his fool mouth shut and waits. He's all caught up in the newness of a 'verse where he don't have to run so hard - the Alliance, since Miranda, has been ignoring his boat like a girl snubbing her date - and speaking of girls, the newness of a 'verse where Inara don't counter his every word, which ain't hardly a thing he can comprehend, given she's still whoring here and there.

So he waits, though he ain't been a man for waiting. Maybe he's getting on, learning all that patience the Shepherd tried to teach him. He and Zoe and Jayne go on pilfering and plundering. Inara goes on seducing her way through the 'verse when she ain't sharing his bunk. Kaylee keeps Serenity flying and River tells her where to go. Simon patches them up best he can, but Mal's seen enough of life to know that the worse wounds ain't the ones you can see.

Zoe functions. She shoots, she eats, she strides along like everything's hunky dory, no problems. But Mal watches her, waiting for that wild thing to show itself. He's seen this before, with the platoon, the way a man'll look steady but shatter into bitty shards for no reason anyone can see. Like the lieutenant back on Hera thought his arms'd come off. He can't have that happen with Zoe. Zoe's his right arm, his gun hand. He can't even think about doing this without her. When he handed over the credits that made Serenity theirs, it was for the both of them, him and Zoe, and maybe they ain't ever been lovers, but he needs her.

He's been sleeping with his door unlocked since they left Miranda behind, waiting for Inara because he can't go to her and kiss her in that bed with all that history in it. Too many men betwixt the sheets before he was, and he can't stomach it. Not even if, as he suspects, it might be love creeping up on them, something finer than he imagined. He ain't ever imagined all the rough edges to it neither, so who's he to say what's love and what ain't? He loves Serenity and that's the only certain thing in the 'verse, aside from Zoe being there at his shoulder when he needs her, and that feels a mite shaky these days. Been a mite shaky for months, ever since they put Wash and the Shepherd to rest. Anyhow, the point is that he sleeps with his door unlocked, and he knows who it is without even peeking the night Zoe's the one coming down his ladder. She don't say a word, just slides right into the bunk between him and the wall, and drags the blanket and his arm over her hip all to once.

In the morning she's gone.

It ain't like they ain't ever done this before. More than once they slept curled against each other, a long bloody series of bedrolls in the dirt and winter eating up more troops than either side could spare. New Kashmir, with a deadly apple gleaming not two feet from her head and only snow banks if they rolled over. Hera, while Tracey huddled up on watch and it was a miracle they didn't all get themselves killed, trusting him to stay awake. Serenity Valley too, those long lonely couple of weeks when they were the only two people they saw. Different now, though. They slept back to back then, all precaution. Now she presses her shoulder blades into his bare chest, and the round of her ass against his hips, and she tucks herself hard up against the wall and hard up against him and pulls his hand up under her breasts. Now she ain't kitted out in as much gear as she could bundle onto herself, just something cotton and strappy, so her shoulders are bare, and her calves. He ain't ever been unaware that Zoe's got more curves to her than ought to be strictly legal, but it ain't seemed to matter, other times. Other times when he had dyin' on his mind instead of just getting a little shut-eye. Other times when she was in her own damn proper-sized bed with her husband. Now he wakes up stiff in more ways than one from trying not to ease himself up against the long body of his first mate. Zoe may feel like an extension of his own skin sometimes, but he ain't immune to that skin when it's only a couple layers of fabric from his own, warm and giving off that woman-scent.

She ain't ever there the same night 'Nara is, and that makes him snicker a time or two when no one's watching, to think of those two coordinating some kind of schedule. It's half a surprise the first time she shows up and half a surprise all the other times, but after a few months, he's coming up on accustomed to it. He don't ever try to kiss her, though more than once he wakes in the middle of the night with his lips pressed against her shoulder and her curls tickling his forehead. He don't touch her past what she asks for with her silent hands rearranging him. Unorthodox, that's what they'd say, if anyone was talking, but neither of them in the bunk say a word, and if Inara knows, well, she ain't speaking her mind any less than usual, but she ain't said a thing about Zoe. If it weren't for the now and again whiff of leather on his pillow, he'd be like to think it was all a dream.

And then one night Zoe turns over and kisses him, easy as breathing, and he may have dreamed before, but that mouth is lusher than any sleeping mind could conjure. He kisses her back, just trying to wrap his mind around what's going on, and she slides long hands up his chest. Zoe knows where all his scars are, better than Inara even, and Inara's studied 'em plenty by this time. He knows hers, too, finds 'em all with his fingertips through her night things.

He can't even feel like it's cheating. He cares more about Inara than he'd like to admit even to hisself, but Zoe, she's a part of him. Out on a mission, they're hardly separate things. She's had his back every inch of eight years or more, and now she's got his front, and it just feels natural. They belong to each other; it ain't ever been a choice, not like she chose Wash, or 'Nara chose to put up with him. It'd be a betrayal to say no. After all he's dragged her through, he owes her some comfort, and more than that, he wants to give it to her, and this is all they'll ever get for chances. He and Zoe ain't the type to talk over all that's gone and past, save for war stories over a cup of wine. They ain't a pair for apologies or making up or for sobbing, slobbery embraces. Just this, as she shucks off his pants and he peels her out of whatever she's wearing. Just this as she moves over him, smooth and hot in the dark. Just this as he puts his hands on all the places he never thought to touch in times of peace, though Lord knows they saw enough of each other trying to keep themselves patched up during the war, and even after. But this is some new and precious thing and he ain't gonna hex it. She deserves better than he's given her.

She don't make a sound, so he don't either, though she weren't exactly quiet with Wash. It's a strain not to let go near as soon as she settles down onto him, but he owes her better than that, so he bites his lip and lets her set the pace. He thinks on the black and how very, very cold it is, not at all like his narrow bunk, which is burning up something fierce. After a while she shivers and clutches at him and he takes that as a blessing and surges up to find his own peace. She climbs back off and falls asleep with her head on his arm. When he wakes up, she's gone, nothing left but a cramp in his arm and sticky sheets.

It happens again, once or twice. Not every night she's there, but a few times. She slips in and instead of wedging herself between bunk and wall she strips him down and they let their bodies talk. She acts the self-same in the daylight, much as there's daylight in the black. She shoots, she eats, she ribs gentle on Simon, and now or then she'll smile at River. She goes off alone a few times they're planetside, but she always comes home, usually with something interesting for the kitchen or the armory. The wild thing in her eyes ain't there near so often, just a flicker here and there like it's gentled down. Time to time Inara or Jayne even makes her laugh. Zoe's still there when he needs her, right at his shoulder. Mal keeps his own counsel and leaves his door unlocked, biding time, waiting for the weight of one body or another beside him.

After a time she stops coming. It's only Inara in his bed, and that more and more frequent-like, 'til he gives in and starts spending nights in her shuttle in a bunk that's sized for two. Not every night, and he keeps a com with him, but hell, history ain't a thing to let ruin his life. He's learned that lesson fair by now. And he don't step wrong and say the wrong name at a crucial moment, though he's discovering Inara's got the toughness of leather in her, and Zoe somewhere the smoothness of silk. They each keep their dibs on their own bits of him. He's Zoe's sergeant, Inara's half-a-gentleman, Kaylee and River's captain, Simon and Jayne's commander. Easy parts to play, and well worth the effort. They're every one of them finding new ways around the old absences. The silences won't ever fill up complete, but well, they'll just tell the old stories and laugh and weep and swear, because they're still on the outside of their blood and guts, and that's how it goes. It's got to be enough, because it's all they got.

Captain keeps his crew together and life goes on, sailing through the black.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Better To (Autumn Harvest Mix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121) by [inalasahl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inalasahl/pseuds/inalasahl)




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